I'm talking about the potty training stage. Ana has been potty trained for about 2 1/2 years, but she just recently learned to stay dry through the night. And Benji mastered both at the beginning of the summer ... which means that I get woken up probably 10 times during the night throughout the week because someone peed in their bed. Again. I've run bed sheets, comforters, duvets, and pee guards, through the wash more times than I've washed my own bed sheets in my entire life.
And that's just the night-time laundry.
The day is even worse! Over the summer, Benji did great! He caught on sooo fast; waay faster than Ana did. I thought, "this is a piece of cake! Everyone says that boys are a nightmare, but Benji must be the exception!"
Wrong. Recently he just stopped caring. That's all I can conclude. He pees everywhere. When he's playing, when we're eating dinner, in the middle of the night, in the car, at grandma and grandpa's, at the store, with or without friends, whenever. Anywhere and everywhere. A constant drip. Like a leaky faucet.
At first I was patient. I just dealt with it. Pull off the wet underwear and jeans and throw new ones on. When there aren't any clean underwear and pants left, throw on Ana's underwear and any pants that I can get my hands on. Old jammies, jeans, church pants, shorts, whatever. I don't care at this point.
I tried rewarding him.
"If you go pee in the potty, and flush, and wash your hands, you get to put a sticker on your chart," I'd say.
This worked OK for a little while. But then he stopped caring about the chart and the stickers. So I used threats.
"If you pee your pants you don't get a sticker!" or "Don't pee your pants at grandma's, or she won't let you come back!" (too mean?)
The result from that one? Not only did Benji pee is pants at grandma's that night, but he pooped them as well.
I'ved used time outs and spankings. I know those aren't ideal, but after about two month of this, I've had ENOUGH! And I'm out of ideas! I've tried everything. Ignoring the accidents, rewarding the accomplishments. Punishments, threatening, time outs, nothing seems to work!
Tonight he peed his pants three times in three hours. He already peed in all of his jeans and jammies, so we went looking for last year's jammies to put him in. When we ask him why he goes pee in his pants, he just smiles sheepishly and says, "I don't know."
But that's not all. I haven't even gotten to the smell. Of urine. Benjamin's sheets always smell like urine. As well as his room. And Ana's sheets, too, for that that matter. And their dirty laundry basket. And since our laundry room is in the cold, unfinished basement -- and it doesn't have a sink for washing anyway --- I pile all of the dirty laundry that needs to be scrubbed, in the kids' bathroom upstairs. Which means that there are always piles of pee clothes draped over the shower bar and the tub, and on the counter. Waiting to be rinsed. So the bathroom always smells like pee.
I mean always. Why clean it when it's just going to fill back up with pee clothes by the end of the day?
Siggggghhhhhh. When will this ever end?????????
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